Design Doesn’t Scale is a statement that has bothered me for the last four-years. When I joined Spotify’s design team in 2012, the level of inconsistency and fragmentation shocked me. Up-close, the treatment of type, colour, imagery, layout, IA, and interactions just didn’t seem to align anywhere. And when I started talking about it, I realised the whole team was… Read More ￫

The Telegraph Newspaper. A household name across the country. It’s the number one broadsheet in the UK and is 161 years old and counting. The world wide web fell into receiving arms at The Telegraph, which was the first of its kind to move online in 1994. Now, with circa 90 million uniques a month globally, the paper has turned… Read More ￫

I took a short trip to Barcelona recently, and whilst that is of no significance to this post, it did give me time to relax, reflect AND read a book. One Small Step Can Change Your Life — The Kaizen Way by Robert Maurer, Ph.D. The book is called “One Small Step Can Change Your Life — The Kaizen Way” by Robert Maurer, Ph…. Read More ￫

My grandfather was a watchmaker. When I was a child, I used to sit next to his huge wooden desk, watching him design and assemble clockworks made of dozens finicky pieces. The amount of patience, determination and precision he put into every facet of his designs was something I have always admired. Watching a running clockwork for the first time… Read More ￫

In the previous few years I’ve gone from being a freelance designer to working exclusively on my own projects (some very successful, and some less so). And I’m not the only one. Every day, more programmers and designers join the tide of hopeful bootstrappers launching a book, an online course, an app, or some other kind of product. But sadly,… Read More ￫

We leverage the sounds of our morning alarm or the distinct beep of an unlocked car to communicate with our technology. Yet there’s an assumption that user interfaces communicate mostly through a screen, overlooking the power of sonic language. “Although hearing is one of our primary senses, most interfaces today are primarily visual.” I’ve been a designer for 16 years… Read More ￫

There has been a monumental shift in the design atmosphere, where more and more designers are moving into freelance work. In the UK alone, freelancing has grown 14% in the past decade and 34% of the U.S workforce are now working as freelancers. It’s not hard to understand why, there are a bunch of appealing aspects to working freelance. From… Read More ￫

How do you encourage teams to think “creatively”? What about to “iterate” on an idea across multi-disciplinary teams? Or to encourage broad “ideation” on a tough problem? Of course there are lots of different processes you can employ, like building a playbook. These plays are step-by-step guides used by any team to help them run effective workshops at different stages… Read More ￫

How to make useful, friendly software for real people. One of the things I love about making software is that it’s a deeply mental exercise, chock full of heady processes, abstractions, and interconnected pathways. You can fill your brain with the practical nuts and bolts side of it—research, strategy, prototyping, programming, UI, operations, and more. Lots more. And if that’s… Read More ￫

Lunch. One of the more important times of the day. Finding food can sometimes be a nightmare when at the centre of such a buzzing city with an incredible scene when it comes to cuisine. We spoke to CityPantry’s Designer, Nicoletta Donadio, to hear about how she helps the city make lunch better by staying on top of both product… Read More ￫

Steps for building a scalable design foundation and to help set large-scale design projects on the path to success. Designing for large-scale design is one of the biggest challenges a designer will face. Every aspect of the project is amplified and the complexities, risks, and unknowns can have a crippling effect. Luckily, there are some steps we can take early… Read More ￫

How to get in the door with a great portfolio There’s a lot of advice out there — forum threads, blog posts, and even other medium articles — all outlining how to build the perfect portfolio. However, after many years receiving and reviewing designer portfolios, it has become apparent that this conversation might be worth a fresh take. Lately, our studio has been getting… Read More ￫